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‘Room’ Wins Toronto Film Festival Audience Award

Director Lenny Abrahamson speaks onstage during the "Room" press conference at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox on September 14, 2015 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Mike Windle/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (AP) – The top award of the 40th Toronto International Film Festival went to Lenny Abrahamson’s “Room,” an emotional tale of a captive mother and her five-year son.

The film took the festival’s People’s Choice award, determined by audience voting, on Sunday. Starring Brie Larson and 8-year-old Jacob Tremblay, “Room” is adapted from Emma Donoghue’s 2010 novel.
Toronto’s audience award has previously been a harbinger of awards season success. Past winners include “12 Years a Slave” and “The King’s Speech.”

Runner-up went to Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight,” a newspaper procedural about the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting on sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

The prize for the festival’s inaugural Platform sidebar of international films was awarded to Alan Zweig’s “Hurt,” a documentary about Canadian cancer hero Steve Fonyo.